An overview of Nano fibre membranes to deliver natural ingredient or extract for targeted drug-delivery devices

Herbal based medicines are used for the treatment of many diseases from ancient times while pharmaceutical chemistry is recently developed. Usually Herbal medicines have been delivered orally in both animals and human. Targeted drug-delivery systems currently more common for the treatment of most life threatening diseases such as cancers. In addition to drug eluting devices many nano based devices delivering active pharmaceutical ingredients or herbal based extracts or particles are growing in demand and they have been approved by FDA and other regulatory bodies. This mini review intends to overview role of nanofibers for the delivery of herbal ingredients and natural plant based extract for the biomedical applications. INTRODUCTION Natural products have been used for the treatment of both human and animals diseases since ancient time in India, ancient China, Egypt, Africa and America. Pharmaceutical chemistry and chemical analysis developed in the early 19 century and they started the extraction and modification of herbal ingredients including plant based natural extracts [1-2]. Today herbal medicines in their novel formulations such as nanoparticles, microemulsions, matrix systems, solid dispersions, liposomes and SLNs, nanomicellar system, nanotubes, and colloidal nanogels have been developed to be used alone as well as in combination with other chemotherapeutic agents [1,3-4]. In addition, the current focus of pharmaceutical researchers is towards design, characterization and development of targeted drug delivery systems for herbal medicines to enhance their effect, response and deliver require quantity of drug to targeted diseased area [5-11]. The challenges with herbal drugs delivery such as smashing of some constitutes of herbal drugs in the highly acidic pH of the stomach and metabolization of some constituents by liver prevent the optimum quantity of the herbal drugs to reach the blood [1,12]. Nano Carriers promote their candidature for herbal remedies to deliver required amount of herbal drugs to targeted diseased area overcoming all the obstacles related to deliver their optimum quantity due to their small size and increased surface area. Sharma et al reported [1] that novel nano drug delivery systems for herbal remedies offer (i) reduction in bulk doses; (ii) delivery at the targeted diseased area for major life threatening diseases;(iii) ease and comfort to patients over the traditional available formulation such as large doses but less effective; (iv)ability to deliver high concentrations of drugs to disease sites due to their unique size and high loading capacities and persist at the sites for the longer periods; (v)